Minez Hardcore
by Professor McJones
Summary: The prologue to Minez Harcore.
1. Prologue

MINEZ

PART ONE:

THE GIANT QUEST

Prologue: A Empty World

In a distant time, the world's inhabitants were all annihilated, leaving no life save for the ravaging zombies. This post-apocalyptic continent was the most dangerous time for any man, and so most people were dead. The world was empty. The homes were filled with belongings, stored items in preparation for the end of all things. The chests remained untouched, for a long time indeed.

Yet in this bitter time, there existed a group of travellers, seven of them, who wished to tackle and kill the one who had all power. This one did not command all zombies, nor were they clever or having traits of a leader, but they were biggest, and so all zombies obeyed it. The giant, it was called, and nothing stood in its way. It lived on the north-most part of the world, as the continent went in all directions, but was not spherical.

These seven were in two groups, one starting in a desert, the other on the outskirts of a wood. Together, they were planning to destroy the indestructible. They had travelled across from the great ocean, and, now at land, with little water or food, they had been separated by a storm. During the trip on water, they'd agreed to the mission, and what to do. Unfortunately, they were both in the south edge of the continent, so they had many miles ahead of them.

And so the giant quest began properly, to go from one end of the remains of the world to the other. And, they suspected, there would be many trials and some sorrowful deaths. But this was pushed from their mind once they began. Some of them knew the ways of the land, while others had never ventured there since it was destroyed. The zombies hadn't destroyed the structures yet, and, though the place was crawling with them, especially at night, you could go considerable distance without them. They were encountered more on landmarks, villages, even old ruined houses, did they stay. The groups hoped they would not find any, and that the giant would be easy to kill. Of course, this was not remotely true. And all their food was destroyed by the storm, so they had to hurry.

The Seven

Austin

Jared

Jeff

Ian

Dean

McJones

Barry


	2. Chapter 1 The Deserted Land

Chapter One: The Deserted Land

Four of the seven were on a desert. Austin, one who knew about the land, had only a sword, bottle of water and a bandage. Jeff had much of the same, as did Ian and Barry.

"I''m thirsty," said Jeff.

"O.K, O.K, everybody drink some water," instructed Austin, "and then we'll begin our journey." They drank a small amount each, relishing in the sweet taste they had not had for so long. "Water is going to be harder to find the further north we get, so make sure you have some," said Austin.

"There should be streams on the mountains, right?" asked Barry. "We're going through mountains?" The others but Austin were silent, unknowing of what awaited them.

"Um, there will be streams and pools," said Austin.

"We can drink from pools we find?" asked Jeff.

"Yeah, well, isn't that…?" started Ian.

"The pools will have bad stuff, that can give you diseases," said Austin. "Yeah, but I'd rather take my chances with the water then die of thirst."

"Hmm, seems risky," said Barry.

"It gets worse the further we go, like how there are more zombies the further we go," said Austin.

"So the closer we get, the more the difficulty increases?" asked Ian, translating Austin language into his lingo. Jeff nodded, and everyone looked over as they saw the sand grew yellower. The sun's rays breached the sky.

"Sunlight!" shouted Austin.

"Yay!" said Barry.

"There's less zombies now…at day," said Austin, though as you know, he should have said "fewer".

"O.K, so we gotta head to Portsmouth to meet up with the other group," said Austin, as everyone started climbing the were

very slippery dunes, with sand that got in your mouth and your boots, but the majority of the landscape was hills of sand, layers of it, and the sand was hard, like earth, so everyone could stand on it. Withered brown plants that had attempted to grow were dotted about, showing signs of the life that had once grown here. Cacti grew around, it was a striking green to the yellow of the desert. The spikes were grey and white, with red rings on the base of the sharp part. Everyone avoided them naturally, and the fruits on the cacti were not there, meaning nothing could get food from them and they were like badly placed obstacles.

"So hopefully, if we come across other travellers on our journey," continued Austin, as the others didn't speak, saving energy in the hot terrain, "who may very well kill us, hopefully they will ignore us because we're in a big group."

There were other travellers in the land, the other survivors, but there were so few that they killed anyone they saw, most of the time, to get equipment and weapons.

"O.K," responded Ian, who wished not to find anyone else, anxious that Austin had mentioned dying in such an offhand way. He was used to journeying, however, and now had seemingly become the group leader.

"Do we look like we know what we're doing?" asked Barry, and, as they walked in their leather armour, Austin turned and walked backwards, studying their movements.

"Um…" said Austin.

"Because we're in a group?" added Barry. By now they had walked to the top of the dunes. Across the top was a stone pathway, and they were walking along it, even though it went east.

"Uh…" began Austin. Everyone stopped moving to hear the conversation. "I…I know you guys, so to me we don't." Ian and Austin laughed, and on they walked. "But, hopefully, to other people, we'll look like we know what we're doing." The stone path had small steps leading down, as it was descending a hill, and they were conserving energy minimally by going down these.

After walking for a few hours, and stopping for a rest and a drink to cool them down from the scorching heat, they kept going, as without food they would soon starve. On and on they went, getting more and more tired and none of them talked at all, except for uttering dismay at the continuation of the desert at the top of each dune. Each time it seemed they were closer to the end, they got to the top, dragging their feet, and there was another half a mile until the next dune.

Eventually, the path began going further down then before, and on the path they kept going. But then Austin spoke suddenly, a change in the wind they had faintly heard the previous hour.

"Oh jeese, I forgot," said Austin, walking back the way they'd come. The others were too surprised by this motion to react quickly. "Oh let's find…I forgot one thing," said Austin, and the others prayed that it was not further than one dune away, if it was important at all. Austin began walking faster back up the path, and the others turned and waited to hear what he had to say. "Up here," he said, and they started following him. "There's a little tiny…uh, desert - desert castle thing, that we can get some gear from."

"Oh," said Barry.

"So let's head up there," said Austin. And up the previous dune they went. The things left behind from the people before the end remained, and the armour was in chests, as the people thought they'd need it for the apocalypse. They were dead, but the chests, and therefore the armour, remained, so up they went, hoping to find something good, something better than leather.

"OK.," concurred Barry.

After a few minutes, they were near the top, and could see a stone fortress. It was ancient, and had large holes in the walls, where the rocks had warn away. Cacti surrounded it, as if the plants wanted to live next to a landmark, like the zombies.

"Are we gonna die right now?" asked Barry very calmly, thought Ian.

"We _might_ ," joked Ian, or at least the others _thought_ it was joking.

"No," said Austin, and was interrupted by Ian.

"Let Austin go first," he said. Jeff giggled, and Austin continued, ignoring such a comment.

"There probably aren't any, like, zombies in here anyway," he said. And so they were inside. Bricks of stone had fallen to the ground, and the whole building smelled of old architecture. Wooden planks partially boarded up a fraction of some of the holes.

" _Probably_ ," said Ian. Austin walked over a fallen wall of bricks, onto a wooden staircase. "Um, O.K, wait a second," said Ian, getting past the bricks into the fortress.

Suddenly there was a bone chilling breathing, and it signalled the alarm of the presence of zombies.

"Oh, I hear - I hear zombies!" shouted Austin. Barry said a similar thing at much the same time, before proceeding to laugh nervously. "O.K, O.K," said Austin quieter, as, while zombies are unlikely to understand people, they have excellent hearing, but not incredible eyesight. "The zombies - I don't know if you've encountered any, uh, but," he continued, and went slowly up the creaking stairs, having stayed frozen during the seconds immediately surrounding the groan. "The zombies are much faster than in real life - uh, I mean, 'then in real life,''' he said, realising how silly that sounded, because the irony is that zombies are normal in their world, so it _was_ real life, but apparently Austin wasn't used to this being the case. He reached the top of the staircase, and the daylight fro, the hole on the ceiling stopped the atmosphere from getting _too_ terrifying.

At the top of the staircase was a wooden floor with a different staircase leading to the ground, and a third between the two, and further forwards, made of stone, leading to the stone ceiling.

A zombie rushed from the ceiling, down to Austin, proving his point about speed, and the zombie was a putrid colour, smelling of vomit and tasting much the same. It moved sporadically, yet, now it had a target, towards Austin, trying to hit him. One touch could make you bleed, or, worst of all, give you a zombie disease. There was an unlikely chance you would get this, but nobody had got this and lived, so Austin got out his sword and begun slashing the zombie back. It knocked it back away, precisely what Austin wanted, and it stopped him being touched. Even one touch, despite not giving you a disease or making you bleed, would hurt you a lot, and so the battle was frantic and fast. The zombie rushed towards Austin, and he hit it again. It zoomed back, but as it did, another one sprinted down the stairs to Austin. "Aah! Two zombies, two zombies!" he shouted. Barry leapt onto the wooden floor, cracking it and slashing the second zombie. "O.K, we're fine, we're fine," said Austin. The second was was pushed back by Barry, the first rushing towards Austin. He continued fighting, and the second one ran to where the first had been and went to Austin. He swung his sword desperately to fight off both, but they gripped him, and as he teared of their arms with his metal blade, he looked down at his arm, as it seared with pain. It was marked red, and blood was streaming out of it.

"Woah, they're fast!" noted Barry, as Jeff and Ian ran upstairs.

"Oh, I'm bleeding already?" asked Austin. "Aww, well I'm gonna have to use my bandage. That's not good," he said, as Ian and Jeff smashed the first zombie into death, while Barry thrust his sword into its head. It died, and they went to the roof.

"Yeah!" shouted Ian, approving the battle.

"I'm gonna have to use my bandage," stated Austin to the others.

"Good work, boys, good work," said Barry.

"We all did so well," said Ian. Austin walked up the stairs to the roof, and saw that the clouds were not so far above his head. The sun was high up, around midday, possibly a little afterwards.

"O.K there's only one chest up here," saw Austin, as Barry walked up. The ceiling had holes in it, having deteriorated through age. Austin walked towards it and opened the wooden box. "Ooh, I'm gonna take this," he said, taking a chain helmet from the chest and half a melon. He left within a snowball and a sword. He then started walking back downstairs. He stopped and put the chainmail helmet on.

"Oh wow!" said Ian in mock approval. "That looks really good on you." Jeff laughed.

"Yeah," agreed Austin. "It totally…doesn't actually."

"That looks amazing," said Jeff.

"What's the snowball for?" asked Barry.

"It's supposed to distract zombies, but it never seems to work," replied Austin.

Downstairs they went, having eaten most of the melon ravenously, and it also quenched their thirst a little, and Austin talked again.

"O.K, we actually have to hurry," he said, "because group two is way closer to Portsmouth than we are." He left the fortress. "So we gotta…we gotta we moving." They left and arrived back into the heat and the desert.

"Alright," said Barry.

"They can wait," said Ian. They began walking down the dune, their feeling lowering in conjunction with their height.

"Yeah but, you know - you know that group two," said Austin, facing them as they walked, "that group two, they're really…"

"Fantastic group two," said Barry, and the group laughed.

Down the dune they went, and at the bottom, when the three-quarter point of the day seemed to have arrived, Austin spoke again.

"O.K, so should we go back to the path, or keep going on the dunes?" he asked. "There's probably a lot of chests in the desert, and also a lot of zombies," he said. "Maybe some survivors," he added quieter.

"Well," said Jeff. "We don't have much food right now, so…"

"They're probably gonna get some decent food at Huntsgrove, so…" said Austin, referring to group two.

"Let's go somewhere where we can get some food, cause, like…" said Jeff. They reached the base of the dune.

"O.K, let's head up here," said Austin, and up the dune they walked.

Once near the top, Austin spoke again.

"Just keep in mind, sprinting and jumping will get you tired and hungry far quicker than you think. This seems obvious, but it really messes it up."

"It just _messes_ it up, man," said Jeff jokingly.

"It messes it up," said Ian.

"Just _messes_ it up," joined in Austin, thinking that this way all they had gathered from what he said. Ian took off his glasses and wiped the sand off them.

"I, like," he began, putting them back on. "I can't see what's in front of me," he said, as the sand was on the lens still, and he could only see a few metres ahead. "Which is why I'm walking behind you," he continued.

"Oh, some tents!" shouted Barry. From the top of the dune, a red and white squared tent, and a similar blue and white one left of it were visible. None of them knew, but these tents were a part of land called Bazaar, according to the map.

"This is…something, I forget what this place's called," said Austin. "But there should be some chests here, hopefully not too many zombies…"

They finally arrived, having gone faster down the dune than up it. There was a grid of holes near the tent, a passageway with secrets.

"I already had to use my bandage," said Austin again, `'because a zombie hit me, and I started bleeding."

"This looks safe," said Barry, and they began exploring. Barry went into the blue tent, which barely waved in the lack of wind.

"Look for chests," said Austin.

"Watermelon and a snowball," said Barry, stating what he found. Austin went to the below-ground routes.

"Look for water, that's what we need," said Austin, and went into an underground room, where the wall, floor and ceiling were made of sand. Inside was a chest, and its contents were some cocoa beans and an apple. "Oh, I found some food," informed Austin. "I'll just hold on to it," he said, and left the room. "Let me know if you're running out of food," said Austin.

"I'm just gonna try to conserve my energy whenever possible, if I can," said Ian. "If I can manage."

"Yeah," agreed Austin. "It's - it's - it's - it's a good idea," he said, saying "it's" three times unnecessarily. "Guys, I have to admit that I'm actually…" He opened a chest in a room, which had some chain boots. "…really nervous…" he finished. The sun was almost down.


End file.
